HDX - my first listen and impressions

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
With the multi amounts of media able to do flash wirelessly and with the inevitable introduction of flash on ipod, I cannot see why naim would have wanted to develop a touch screen or even source it out with all that additional cost to the customer.

Without doubt the amounts of complaints about the fancy remote adding to the cost when they could use their lappy would have afar outweighed the few who were happy to pay another x-amount for a commercially available product with a naim logo on.

Agree, but they did make a Naimnet tablet at about $4500USD. That's about $2800-3000 more than the average tablet that you would pay with many Home Automation System and I think that $1500-1800 is way out of whack when you consider it's and rightly so , not even a fully functional computer.

If ipod gets flash great, but a tablet, laptop, or Internet Tablet does just fine. I wish I knew more about R&D costs as it's amazing that Sonos can produce a really nice handcontroller for under $400 which would be perfect. I know it ultimately comes down to cost and volume of units sold, but... Only drawback from these non-dedicated interfaces is that you can't get the "Naim Screen" to fill you entire screen much like with a slide show and use the software then click to close it out--maybe?

Naim offer the tablet to clients who aren't even asking the price, you understand that part of the home multi-room install right?

As usual naim seem to be offering a variety of products at different price points, of course we all want to be at the top but cannot.

All they need now is a dac of some sort to slot in at the entry point and another at the top point (Imo)

The hdx doesn't need wireless for remote control as the fancy remotes you can already buy have wireless extenders so you can operate it from anywhere in the house but the final path is via infra red. I don't think it would be too much effort to join up with harmony or whoever to make a naim branded version that would operate the hdx through the flash front end. Being able to use the flash frontend from any computer in the house is quite handy and causes me amusement to set the music going downstairs when I'm elsewhere. Sad I know!

I don't think I'd want to stream uncompressed music over wireless as it would tend to swamp your network. If you were using t'internet at the same time then I think you'd find you'd get jitter and all sorts of problems. Wired is the way to go for streaming high quality music reliably so I think naim are right about that.

I do think to tempt more people to buy the hdx it should come with an equivalent of a flatcap psu or better still work with a flatcap-2 as I'd imagine lots of people will be wanting to upgrade from a 5x/flatcap to a hdx so if you can reuse the flatcap then it is one added advantage. I have no idea whether this is possible but assume it is as the flatcap is 24v as well isn't it? An xps seems a waste as I only want one feed not 6. The other 5 would be doing nothing.

Things I would like to see on an hdx before I bought one are:

settings for fade gaps between tracks as they are currently abrupt as there aren't any
ability to rip to a networked drive
ability to import playlists from itunes from usb media, ipods or networked drives
desktop client to work on a mac or via an extra section in the flash front end (password protected to stop casual fiddling.)

As it has a digital out then there is scope for upgrades with other offboard dacs. I think naim should release the 555's dac in a box rather than doing the upgrade inside the hdx itself. This way previous owners aren't alienated by a new and better one and the computer front end people can get a fantastic dac to use with their set up.

quote:

Originally posted by pylod:
have you tried the hdx with a xps ?..did this change the voicing from "x" to "s" ?

I haven't tried the XPS. Only a 555PS.
But no, it does not change the presentation just as putting a 555PS does not change the personality of a CDX2 or CDX. ( it sounds more natural but if you compared directly to a CDS3/555PS you can still hear the difference of the head unit )

quote:

or is it more the hires files which goes more for " s" presentation...

Not enough program to compare so it's inconclusive. But generally, hi-res files add more air and atmosphere.

quote:

does someone really believe , that the big companies... will provide hires files ? mean sony bmg and so on...

I seriously doubt it for a kind of music i listen to. I've a feeling hi-res files will remain in a niche/audiophile category and music titles to match.

quote:

With the multi amounts of media able to do flash wirelessly and with the inevitable introduction of flash on ipod, I cannot see why naim would have wanted to develop a touch screen or even source it out with all that additional cost to the customer.

Without doubt the amounts of complaints about the fancy remote adding to the cost when they could use their lappy would have afar outweighed the few who were happy to pay another x-amount for a commercially available product with a naim logo on.

Sounds like another if-it-ain't-free-it's-too-expensive argument to me–the Nokia N8x0 series tablets with OS2008 will work perfectly fine, but are not persistent enough for serious use.

They are fine for casual use, but I wouldn't specify them for custom integration purposes–which is where a purpose-built, persistent (i.e., will wake operably without re-negotiation with the wireless network, etc.) tablet might be handy (to say the least).

It's not that CI is a cost-no-object product space, but, rather, that the price for screw-ups in a high-end client's home is far dearer than the average Mac mini / iPod touch user, who will patiently wait for software updates from Apple with no ultimate recourse.

The Flash-on-iPhone / iPod touch waiting thing is getting a bit old, BTW–methinks it won't happen (keeping fully in mind that a current 3G iPhone is actually more expensive than the Nokia tablets).

Dave Adobe say they are ready to go with fash on the iphone and are talking with apple.

The arguments seem to be either low battery life or a risk of installing apps not from the app store. I think they can at least get around the app download thing surely.

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
Naim offer the tablet to clients who aren't even asking the price, you understand that part of the home multi-room install right?

As usual naim seem to be offering a variety of products at different price points, of course we all want to be at the top but cannot.

All they need now is a dac of some sort to slot in at the entry point and another at the top point (Imo)

thanx kuma... that you tried the 555ps is even better...i mean there we are on the extrema for the hdx... so there still is space for an HDS in the naim product line...


yes i liked teh possibility to play hires files lot and could even be a buying point here for an hdx, but to be honest i doubt it as well, that te giants will follow...but this is the music im listening to...as nice A F is and i have even 3 cd´s in my collection and an LP, it is not enough. and the linn collection really doesn´t interest me so much ( ok i don´t want to be unfair )there are maybe 10 titles.

Hi Dave,

Have you tried the Sony Mylo yet? I hear it doesn't disconnect from the wireless network when the screen saver is actioned like the Nokia does? I can't get one down here otherwise I would try it.

Hope you are well?

Cheers,

Chris.

I went to listen to the HDX but couldnt due to some set up problems. The long time Naim dealer was clearly frustrated at a lack of support from Naim and the series (3 so far) of updates which had followed the release of the product. It seems to have been released prematurely.

I did listen to a Linn DS and was thoroughly unimpressed with standard CD copies. A CD5x was far better. Perhaps with High Res files it is a different story but unless a HD system can at least compete with standard CD, it is a non starter for me.

The CD player is staying.

Hi Merto, thanks for the feedback as you can imagine some of your statements really need some action from us.
Please let us have the name of your retailer urgently so that we can discuss with them the lack of support, as you know we are usually brilliant at this. Lets clear this up and help the retailer get the service they deserve.We have shipped almost a 1000 hdx players with low reported issues and the majority of those have been related to firewall blocks and ip connectivity. Switching over to dynamic ip from the shipped static ip address\requires some experience especially when later adding service packs as we release more features. This has caught some people out. (ok our documentation should be much better)
Once again thanks for the feedback, hopefully you get to hear the hdx soon.

Over 1000? Thats 4.5 million at retail -- thats astonishingly good business in this current mixed-up financial world. congratulations to naim.

Yes Jon if only that was our bottom line remember the retailer and the taxman get a juicy share but it has meant our retailers world wide have had a good summer with the superline as well,would have been even better had the powerline not been delayed. All the markets are tough though and predicting the short term future requires a crystal ball.

Of course, naim's margin on 4.5 mill is going to be a much smaller figure! And predicting things in the light of, say, the uk/euro and uk/dollar rates must be a total nightmare.

I'm in the very fortunate position of doing work for clients in euro-zone, who are currently using a different test lab to me in USA. The price of work done in USA has rocketed (charged in dollars), whereas my price has fallen (charged in sterling). But few are in such a fortunate position -- and of course, I had to weather it going the other way in the past!

But the volatility must be scary.

quote:

Have you tried the Sony Mylo yet? I hear it doesn't disconnect from the wireless network when the screen saver is actioned like the Nokia does? I can't get one down here otherwise I would try it.

Hope you are well?

Yes, best to you and Debbie–one thing that seems to work better is (using my NETGEAR router) pre-allocating the MAC address of the tablet (I am using an N800) to the address table of the router–I noticed little or no difference using static IPs on the tablet.

Mylo still a bit constrained as regards supply at the moment.